


New Growth

by Windian



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Unrequited Love, set five years after the F Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 09:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9228275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windian/pseuds/Windian
Summary: 'Winter comes to Barona castle. The ponds in the garden freeze over and great sheets of frost are laid out over the grass. With the change in weather comes Sophie. She walks out with Richard to the gardens and looks down at the flowers that already now are starting to wilt.“That’s that,” she says.'





	

Winter comes to Barona castle. The ponds in the garden freeze over and great sheets of frost are laid out over the grass. With the change in weather comes Sophie. She walks out with Richard to the gardens and looks down at the flowers that already now are starting to wilt.

“That’s that,” she says.

Richard still remembers how hard the first winter was on her. Neither he nor Asbel could console her. She’d put so much love and care into the flowerbed, and to tell her more would grow back did not help. Because she didn’t want new flowers. She wanted her own back.

But now, Sophie simply looks at the flowers with a touch of sadness and says, “That’s that,” and Richard can’t think but how much they’ve all changed in five years.

After a stormy on-off relationship for several years, Pascal and Hubert finally tied the knot last year. Malik visits often, the eternal bachelor, with stories that are ever-entertaining. And Cheria and Asbel have been happily married for years now, with two children and one more on the way.

Once, Sophie would visit with stories about the children and their antics, but she stopped, once she saw the growing sadness in Richard’s eyes.

He understands, too, that ever-present longing for things long-dead and wilted.

So when Sophie visits now, Richard might inquire after Asbel and his family’s health, and Sophie will tell him, and they will move on to less painful topics.

She visits often, for weeks at a time. And for Richard her visits are a breath of fresh air. He’s not lonely, exactly, in the castle. He meets far too many people— nobles, dignitaries, officials— to be lonely. Yet to those people Richard is King Richard of Windor, and it’s only when he’s alone with his friends— and Sophie in particular— that he can breathe a breath of relief, and simply be Richard. Richard, who spent an entire afternoon braiding flower crowns with Sophie in the garden, laughing. Richard, who’s never set foot in a kitchen but still made a stab at cooking crablettes with Sophie (even if it ended with a black plume of smoke and the cook running in, shouting). Richard, who will trudge through all his daily paperwork with a smile, because once he’s done he knows Sophie will be in their secret fort in the west wing, waiting for him.

Their fort is unrecognisable now from the few boxes and barrels they’d pushed together haphazardly. There’s a canopy of purple satin sheets and the hard edged boxes are covered with blankets. There’s enough pillows to get lost in and piles and piles of books, because ever since Cheria taught her to read, Sophie’s been trying to devour everything.

As Richard opens the door quietly, he spies Sophie’s legs poking out from the end of the fort. She’s on her stomach, legs waving in the air as she reads with a single-minded determination, taking the last few bites of an apple. Richard leans down to untie his boots and sneaks towards her.

Sophie is so engrossed in her book she doesn’t notice Richard until he’s upon her and tickling her mercilessly.

“Ri—Richard!” she gasps, but she doesn’t protest for long. Instead she leaps at Richard and digs her fingers underneath his arms and they’re both struggling and laughing and it’s a good thing his political enemies don’t know how unbearably _ticklish_ Richard is.

In the end they only stop because Richard remembers and says, “The crablettes will get cold,” and Sophie fixes him in the eye and tells him:

“Okay. You win. This round, anyway.”

They eat together, and Richard’s attention goes to the book Sophie was engrossed in. “What are you reading?” he asks.

Usually Sophie would divulge what she’s been reading easily, gushing about Fendel’s border defences or Baronan fairy tales or methods of eleth distribution. But this time, her cheeks pinken.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she says, and Richard’s interest is peaked.

“Oh? You seemed very involved in this nothing,” he says.

She flushes harder, and the look is lovely on her.

Of course, Richard has to see what the book is now. He reaches for it, and Sophie gasps, “Richard!” and dives at him, and there’s more tickling, more struggling, more laughter. Until Richard manages to grab the book and holds it aloft in triumph, and the book is…

The book is _The Emperor’s Secret Love_ …?

The cover features a young woman swooning in the rugged arms of a handsome man. It has all the hallmarks of trashiest kind of romance novel, and it’s not at all what Richard expected.

“Richard…!” Sophie huffs, pouting a lower lip and holding a hand out for her book back.

He stares at the cover a little more, and hands it over. “You don’t need to be embarrassed, Sophie. I’m not about to tell you what you can and can’t read,” he tells her.

“…Oh,” Sophie says.

He frowns. “Did someone tell you you shouldn’t be reading that?”

She bites at her lip. “Asbel said it was junk and that I shouldn’t be reading stuff like that. But I’m not a little kid anymore. And I was just… curious,” she says. Cheeks puffed up defiantly, she’s betrayed by her blush, her face as rosy as a pink lady apple.

“About what, Sophie?” he asks.

Sophie doesn’t look at him. “Love,” she says.

Another thing that Richard did not expect to come out of Sophie’s mouth at all.

He sees the nervousness in the way her fingers run through her hair, so long now that unbraided, it would sweep the ground behind her. She asks, quite suddenly, “Richard, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Sophie,” he says.

“Do you still love Asbel?” she asks.

Richard’s mouth is hanging open.

“I’m sorry, Richard. I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it,” she says, backtracking quickly.

But he shakes his head. “It’s okay, Sophie.”

They should be able to talk about this, he thinks. After all, how many years did he put off telling Asbel his feelings? How much had that helped, then?

“I don’t love him any more. Mostly,” he says.

“Mostly?” Sophie asks.

“Mostly,” he agrees.

Not that telling Asbel his feelings had helped, either. When he’d finally clawed up the courage to confess, Asbel had been silent a long while, before saying, “I know.”

Things were never quite the same, after that. They never knew what to say to one another. They lost the closeness they once had. After all, they’d had to leave space for all the unspoken feelings between them to sleep.

And just a few weeks later, he’d proposed, properly, to Cheria.

Richard had tried all sorts of things to get over his friend. He’d even taken home men. They were never hard to find, yet even then Richard could not free himself from Asbel. He found himself taking to men who had Asbel’s colour hair, or with a similar jawline, or who carried themselves with their hands in their pockets. Yet when they picked up their things and left, there was no sense of fulfilment. Only a deep seeping sense of longing and shame.

But time had passed, and had healed him. His heart no longer clenched when he heard Asbel’s name. The sharp piercing pain had become the throb of an old wound.

And Sophie had been beside him. Just having her with him raised his spirits more than she could ever know. The more time they spent together, the more Richard’s feelings towards her shifted from friendship and something resembling parental love towards…

Richard starts as Sophie’s hand closes round his. “Love is strange, isn’t it?” she asks.

He can’t help but smile. A little wryly. “It certainly is.”

Sophie’s eyes stumble into contact with his. Lately he’s caught her several times looking at him in such a fashion… biting down on her bottom lip with something like worry, or concentration, a feeling he couldn’t map into words swimming in her eyes.

Yet Richard never allowed himself to hope for what it might mean. He’s never searched out for replacements for Sophie. To start with, because there are no girls like Sophie.

His breath hitches in his throat as Sophie squeezes his hand.

“I was reading the book because I wanted to know what it would be like,” she confesses in a low voice.

“To know what?” Richard asks. He dares to hope, but he needs her to put it into words.

“To know what it would be like if you loved me.”

For years, Richard hesitated. He doesn't hesitate any longer.

“It might just be easier if I showed you,” Richard says, and he closes the gap between them to press a kiss to her mouth. At first, she just lets him kiss her, unmoving. But then hands come up, tangling around his neck, and Sophie kisses him back. She smells and tastes like sunshine and soil and fresh air.

It brings Richard back to that day, years ago, when he’d crouched beside Sophie by her flowerbed. Tears had been spilling down her cheeks onto the dirt.

“They’re dying,” she told him.

“More will grow back, next year. I bet they’ll be even prettier than these,” Richard consoles her.

She just shakes her head. It’s not the same.

Richard understands.

He stands, and offers Sophie a hand up. She takes it, and then presses her wet cheek to his chest, as he puts his arms around her.

He doesn’t need to say a word for Sophie to understand.

What will grow will grow.


End file.
